Rabbi Schneider - The Entrance to God's Presence
God bless you and shalom Yedidim. This is Rabbi Schneider from southern Israel. I'm inside a Tabernacle replica that is made to specification from the Torah. Now last week I talked about the outer perimeter. I'm just gonna quickly review. The outer fence is a hundred and fifty feet long, seventy five feet wide, seven and a half feet tall and the fence represents that man is separated from God. But there was one way in through the fence and that one way represents Jesus. That one way in is made of beautiful fabric of purple scarlet and blue and it's just gorgeous representing the beauty of God and eternity into God's heart.
Now the tent itself was made first of all of animal skins and then underneath the animal skins was beautiful fabric. And then I brought you inside the holy place, which is where I'm standing right now. Again beloved one, I'm just reviewing quickly. I spoke last week of the golden menorah made from one pure piece of gold, hammered out into seven different candle sticks, the light always burning. It represents the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us in Revelation chapter one that as John was greeted by the Lord, in Revelation one he was greeted from Him who was, Him who is and Him who is to come and from the seven spirits that are before the throne. Not seven different spirits, but seven is God's number of completion and perfection. It means the Holy Spirit.
We talked about that in detail last week. And then I spoke about the table of show bread. Now notice here at the table of show bread there are twelve loaves. The twelve loaves are for the twelve tribes of Israel. The table of show bread is also called the bread of presence, or the bread of face, because the Lord always looked at, meaning that His eyes are always looking at His people, because He loves them. They're the apple of His eye and the same is true for you, because the whole church now is the Israel of God. And the priests would eat the show bread every Sabbath and then replace it and this speaks to us of the fact that God Himself isour life. The priests would eat the show bread, they would eat the bread of presence, meaning that God Himself beloved, is the life of His people.
Then last week I also took you over to the altar of incense and the incense would arise here continually. The incense represents the prayers of God's people. Prayer in scripture is often associated with incense and the incense goes straight up. It was pure prayer to the Lord Himself. When you and I pray from a pure heart our prayers also go straight up to the Lord and He hears us and He answers us. Now before we go into the Holy of Holies behind the curtain, I wanted to spend just a few minutes talking about the garments of the High Priest.
Now notice that the High Priest first of all is wearing underneath the blue, he's wearing a white garment. And white represents, once again, purity and sanctity. Then on top we have the blue garment. When you think about blue, blue represents heaven. The sky is blue. The sea is blue, so this is a heavenly color. Then notice the breast plate, there's twelve stones. Each stone, one for the twelve tribes of Israel. And then notice on his shoulders, we have on his shoulders, once again the twelve tribes of Israel listed. Now the miter that he's wearing, the cap that he's wearing, has on the front that golden band and what that band says is "Holy to the Lord".
I want to point out something to you that I really liked now as we move downward on the garment. Notice there at the bottom of the blue garment there is a mixture of bells and pomegranates. When ever the priest would move, you could hear the bells. So you have a bell and a pomegranate. And I believe that perhaps one of the significant principles that the Lord is prophetically illustrating here is that the Word of God needs to be both heard via the bells and we also need to those of us that are speaking the Word, we need to have fruit in our lives.
In other words we can't just preach the word without having the fruit of the Spirit in our life. We need to be both preaching the Word, which is replicated or represented by the bell, but we also need to have the fruit of the Spirit in our life, love, joy, peace, patience, discipline, self control, which is represented there by the fruit or the pomegranate. So we need to have that beautiful blend of being those that are speaking God's Word, witnessing to people, as well as those that are Godly examples and have Christ like character, because the fruit of the Spirit is being seen through our life. Now what I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna take you behind beloved ones, the curtain, the Holy of Holies.
Now there's something here about the curtain that is very mystical, because there's no opening in the curtain. There's no center in the curtain. And this curtain was very, very thick and very, very heavy. How did the High Priests get from the holy place, through the curtain, into the Holy of Holies. And I like one mystical translation that the curtain represents beloved, spiritual warfare. Remember I told you that the curtain was very thick and very heavy. And I believe that it represents spiritual warfare, that in order to press in to the Holy of Holies, which is behind the curtain where God Shekinah glory dwelt.
You're gonna see behind the curtain was the Ark of the Covenant and above the Ark of the Covenant the Shekinah glory of God was visibly manifest. So I believe that prophetically what the Lord is saying, that if you want to enter into the place where you're gonna experience My glory, hear My voice on a continual basis, you're gonna have to press in through the powers of darkness. You're gonna have to learn how to do spiritual warfare to enter in to where My glory is, where you can hear My voice.
Now we're inside the Holy of Holies. Notice again, pure gold. This room right here had nothing in it, but the Ark of the Covenant and three objects. And the three objects are the Ten Commandments, which are inside the Ark of the Covenant, Aaron's rod that budded and an omer's or a day's worth of manna. I want to begin beloved ones, by talking about the objects that were outside the Ark of the Covenant right here. Number one we have Aaron's rod that budded.
I want you to think about where this comes from. There was a rebellion in ancient Israel against Moses and Aaron and the rebellion was spreading. Moses fell on his face, because they were about to completely destroy everything, the rebels. And he said, "What should I do"? And the Lord said this, I want you Moses to have the head of every tribe take a branch and lay it before me. And the branch that buds, that's the one I've chosen to lead, because they were all saying, "Moses why do you get to be the leader? Why are you making all the decisions"?
They were wanting to have an equal role in the decision making and it was creating tremendous chaos and rebellion. So Moses instructed them, I want the head of every tribe to take a rod. Let's lay them out before the Lord and the rod that supernaturally buds, that's the one the Lord says, "I've chosen to lead". So they all laid their rods out and what happened? Sure enough the next day only Aaron's rod had budded and blossomed and bore fruit. And so they kept this in the Holy of Holies as a reminder of the fact that God leads not through democracy, but through His chosen instruments.
And beloved, the same principle is true today. I know that a lot of good things happen through democratic systems, but God's government is a bureaucracy. He's the king and He appoints His leaders. And then also we have here an omer'w worth of manna. This was the supernatural manna that the Lord fed the Israelites while they were in the wilderness for forty years. Six days a week the manna was on the ground. Some of you remember the story. The Lord said to them, "Now listen, I want you to gather just enough manna each day". The Lord said, "Don't gather more than enough manna for a day, because if you gather more than enough manna for the day and try to hoard it and save it, what's gonna happen is everything you don't eat that day is gonna get foul and get infested with worms".
And sure enough, we read that's what happened. But the Lord said, "However on the sixth day gather twice as much manna, because on the seventh day, on Shabbat, on the Sabbath I'm not gonna put any manna on the ground". So on the sixth day they gathered twice enough, as much manna to last them for two days and supernaturally the manna didn't grow foul and infested with worms into the next day as it did on the other six days of the week.
Now here's something else that's really incredible, for forty years the manna supernaturally fell on the ground every week, six days a week. But listen to this beloved one, the day they entered the Promised Land the manna stopped, because now they were able to survive by the natural provision that was already in the Promised Land. They were able to survive from the plant life and the animals that were in the Promised Land. And it really kind of shows us that when we need a miracle God does miracles, but when God has provided for us, our needs in the natural realm, often times He chooses not to do a miracle, but chooses to allow us instead to gain our substance from the natural world, which He also created.
I like this also when I think about the omer's worth of manna, it reminds us of the supernatural. Again, the manna that they gathered each day was supernatural manna and because it's in the Holy of Holies, once again we're in the Holy of Holies, each one of these objects speaks to us of how we can have a relationship with God. Because remember the Lord told the children of Israel the reason they were to build this Mishkan, this Tabernacle was so that He could dwell with them.
And right now we're in the Holy of Holies in this place that teaches us the principles that must be operating in our life in order for God to dwell with us, in order for Him to be at rest in our lives. One of the principles that I'm driving here from the fact that the supernatural manna was here as a reminder forever, is that if we're gonna go deep with God, if God's really gonna be able to commune with us at the deepest level, beloved we're gonna have to contend for the supernatural in our life. We're gonna have to believe in God to do supernatural things in our life and to work in a supernatural way.
See there's a lot of believers, a lot of Christians and they've been taught that the age of miracles is passed. They say, they think, "Yeah the Lord did miracles in the Bible, but He's not doing those types of things anymore". And so their life is confined to studying the Bible, to read what god did for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to read what He did through the hands of Paul and Peter and they don't think that He's doing the same things today. But the truth is beloved, God is the same yesterday, today and forever and He's still doing miracles. And if we're gonna walk with God in intimacy, then we're gonna have to still beloved, believe that He's the God that's doing the same thing for us today as He did for the children of Israel thirty five hundred years ago. After all the new covenant is the better covenant, why would He be doing less today then He did back then?
Now finally we're right here, the Ark of the Covenant. The most sacred piece of furniture in the Tabernacle, made of pure gold. Notice the cherubim that are above it. These were the two golden statues of angels and between the two cherubim dwelt the literal presence of God, the Shekinah glory. And when the High Priest would come in once a year the Lord would literally speak to him out of His presence, out of the light, out of the Shekinah glory. Now inside the Ark of the Covenant are the Ten Commandments, the two tablets where the Lord wrote His moral law on. Now beloved, we are not under the law, but you can't throw away the baby with the bath water, because the law, the Ten Commandments represents, listen now, God's moral make up. In other words, the first commandment is that we should worship God and Him only.
Now that's true as a believer that's under the new covenant. Aren't we supposed to worship God and Him only? Then we look at the other commandments, things like not stealing, not lying, not committing murder. These things are still relevant today. And so the truth is beloved ones, that we're not under the law, but the law, listen to me now, contains the self revelation of who God is. So we still walk in the principle of the Spirit of the law even though we're not under the law, because the law once again, represents God's divine nature and His moral attributes. In fact the covenants beloved, the Ten Commandments on, inside the Ark of the Covenant here, they're the bedrock of western civilization.
That's why up until a few years ago in America we had the Ten Commandments on display in our government buildings. That's why our coins in the United States have, "In God we trust", because the Ten Commandments are the moral foundation of America and much of the western world. So they're very much applicable today. Society may be changing, but let me tell ya, God is not changing. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. So as we begin to wind down today, once again I began by showing you the fence that separated that which is outside the Tabernacle from what's inside the Tabernacle. What does a fence do? A fence separates.
The Bible is teaching us here that our sin has separated us from God. But in God's mercy God made a way in. That way is Jesus. It's symbolized by the one door into the Tabernacle made up of multi color fabric. Then we entered in through the door, which is Yeshua, into the outer court. We found there the altar where the worshiper would come, bring his animal and then the priest would put that animal to death on behalf of the worshiper and put his blood, put the animal's blood upon the alter. It represented the innocent animal died on behalf of the guilty worshiper and now his sin was atoned for. Then we looked at the laver where the priests washed every day. We talked about how we not only need to be forgiven, but we need to be cleansed.
Then we came into the holy place. We looked at the golden menorah representing the Holy Spirit. We looked at the table of show bread representing God's presence and His eyes upon the children of Israel. And then we looked at the alter of incense representing the prayers of the saints. Then we saw the curtain that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. I talked about that the curtain was very thick and that we have to press through the thick powers of darkness to enter into God's presence, which was visible inside the Holy of Holies, which I'm standing in right now.
The center piece of the Holy of Holies is the Ark of the Covenant. Over the Ark of the covenant were the two angels, the two cherubim and between the two cherubim was God's Shekinah glory. And when the high priests entered in once a year the Lord would literally speak to the high priests out of His presence. I want to say to you today that when Yeshua was crucified, the curtain that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies was torn asunder. God has made a way for you into the Holy of Holies and He's speaking to you today, that's why the Holy Spirit came in Acts chapter two, as a tongue of fire. God is speaking to you beloved one. He loves you and through Jesus you have entered in to God's love and in to the Holy of Holies.
I know there are some that are listening right now and you've never experienced what I just explained, how Jesus opened up the door for you and I individually, personally and specifically to enter into the Holy of Holies, which is representative of God's presence. I want to speak to you right now. Our reason for living is to experience God. We were created by God Himself for the purpose beloved ones, of knowing Him. Jesus said, "This is eternal life, that you would know God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent".
How is that Jesus opened up the way? The way that Jesus opened up the way beloved one is that through His life, death and resurrection He has died and risen on our behalf so that we could enter into the Father's presence. This is why Jesus said, "No man cometh to the Father, but through Me". I want you to hear me right now. What I'm describing to you is not just theological dogma, it's a living present reality. You're alive and the reason you're alive is because God's alive. He created you. The reason you could experience consciousness right now is because God is around you and He's given you the ability beloved one, to be aware.
You and I will never find the reason we are here until we find God through Jesus. I want to encourage you right now, open up your heart. And I know some of you have thought you've known Jesus, because you were raised in church and you know certain aspects of the doctrine of the Christian faith. You believe Jesus is God's Son, etc., but you've never really experienced a touch from God in a way that you know that He loves you. I want to pray for you right now.
Father God in Jesus name I thank You for the words that You've released today through this broadcast and I ask Father that by Your Holy Spirit You would open up the heart of each and every viewer right now. Jesus You said that You stand at the door and knock. We open up our door Jesus Christ and say please King Jesus come in. Let us know you and give us eternal life.